Le Royal Meriden

This giant luxury hotel on the east side of People’s Square has all the makings of a fine five-star hotel. The open-plan rooms carefully balance contemporary Chinese style with excellent technology and design functionality, and the restaurants and bars are all perfectly luxe. Somehow, though, the sum of the individual parts doesn’t quite add up. The public spaces are far too large, and service is slovenly. That said, if someone else is paying, those concerns dissolve behind the hotel’s elegant showiness.